Sunday, March 19 at noon is the annual unit game honoring the Ace of Clubs and mini-McKenney winners for 2006. Come out to congratulate them and try to beat them in a stratified pairs game.

The mini-McKenney and Ace of Clubs lists are now based on point ranges. The winners for 2006 in their respective ranges were: Paul Lee, Linda Rallis (0-5); Melanie Kakalec, Larry Lee (5-20); Lynn Shannon (20-50); Peggy Sprague (50-100); Bruce Scott (100-200); Nongyu Li, Cassandra Leung (200-300); Boyer Chu, Raja Smadi (300-500); Erin Gove, Derek Fiero (500-1000); Lynn Yokel, Mostafa Hafezi (1000-2500); Tania Reyes (2500-5000); Dianne Shannon (5000-7500); Fran Dickman (7500-10,000); Rose Meltzer, Ed Barlow (10,000+). When two names appear, the mini-McKenney winner is listed first.

Kit Humphrey started the Monterey Regional with a win in the charity pairs. Jack Verson & Dana Brown were first in their stratification. Strat tops in open pair games were earned by Constance Dunckelmann & Lee Dimmitt, Li-Chung Chen (first overall), David Gambelin & Bill Yetter, T-C Yang (first overall), Gary Porter, Ray & Maxine Lubow, Jiang Chen & Nongyu Li and RuthAnn Critchfield. In the limited pair games, strat firsts went to Wendy Dewell & Phyllis Gaffney, Karen O’Connell & Marilyn Bliss, Richard Markell, Marc Epstein, Bob & Nancy Ward, Joy Barrett & Joe Buchanan and Jay Xu.

On winning knockout teams were Norman Wang, David Chang, Boyer Chu & Chee Tung, John Prior, Mich Ravera, Jerry Lundquist & Joseph Chui, Allan Malloy & Ed Chen, Don Nemiro, John Hoffman, Henri Farhi & Ed Barlow. On winning Swiss teams were Rekha Nirula & Shirley Foreman, Eugene Hung, T-C Yang & Li-Chung Chen, Walid & Bassam Baroudi, Zag Kadah & Kamen Nedeltchev, Chin & Melody Chao.

The winners of our January unit team game were John Prior, Leon Lee, Joe Chui & Jerry Lundquist. Ten teams turned out for the event, which is the same kind of game you can always find at our club on Saturday night, an IMP game with hand records.

At the Livermore sectional, the following unit members topped their pair strats: Jiang Chen, Ed Barlow, and Frank Lowenthal. It’s also news that no unit members took first in their Swiss team brackets.

Congratulations to the following new masters: Mary Dyer, Philip Freiberger, Elenalani Lam (Junior); Carolyn Tutko (Club); Jan Kiernan (Sectional); Happy Fordham, Art Quaife, Collette Quaife, Ken Rosenfeld (Regional); Kat Wesolowska (NABC); Nongyu Li, Bruce Scott (Life); Nongyu Li (Bronze); Joel Singer (Silver); Henri Fahri (Gold).

In December, as announced in a postcard and this column, the board decided that pets were welcome at the February unit game. For a variety of reasons, the board changed its mind in January, too late to report in this column, but publicized in other ways. My apologies for any resulting confusion.

Please send suggestions and corrections to rayyuenger@comcast.net or (408)379-7717.